The game really falls apart when fighting action comes into play. Although Faith knows some martial arts, she never picked up three critical skills: blocking, throwing and subduing multiple opponents. Players are encouraged to avoid conflict at every opportunity, but the game is set up so that it's impossible not to run headlong into awaiting gunmen. Faith can disable or disarm a single target, but is as good as dead when there are two are more enemies nearby. Disarming opponents involves a quick time-like event where the enemy's weapon flashes red a second, giving Faith a brief opportunity to grab it from him. Getting hit stuns her so badly that there's almost no opportunity to recover. Players can activate adrenaline to slow down time, but it doesn't help all that much and there's no way to turn it off once it starts. Successfully disarming a guard locks Faith into an animation that's fun to watch, but leaves her completely vulnerable to gunfire from surrounding enemies.

These guards use automatic weapons against a small unarmed girl, which is the very definition of overkill. There's supposed to be a sense of satisfaction and reward for completing the game without shooting anyone, so we played along with using non-lethal methods. We eventually gave up about midway through, when the guards came after us with heavy assault rifles and snipers. Players essentially break the game once they decide to cross this line and start shooting back. The AI is designed more for ganging up on an unarmed runner than it is for taking cover and moving strategically. Using firearms transforms Mirror's Edge into a bad first-person shooter.

It took us roughly six hours to beat Mirror's Edge, even after repeating some of the levels several times. Although we were disappointed by the game's brevity, among other things, we suppose it was good to break things off before the game became too tedious. Additionally, even though we're generally not prone to motion sickness, a few hours of staring a foot away from the screen filled with rapidly shifting first-person action was enough to make us feel a little dizzy. Replay value comes from taking on time challenges and uploading scores to a leaderboard, which might appeal to some people but not us. Runner's vision is turned off in time trial mode, turning the city into a boring and sanitized white-on-white landscape.

In the greater scheme of things, Mirror's Edge represents the big risks and different approach gamers want from developers by putting emphasis on evasion and using the environment instead of running and gunning like most other first-person action games. Yet its execution leaves a lot to be desired. Big risks mean potentially losing big, which is what happens here. If you're set on playing Mirror's Edge despite its shortcomings, the PC version is the best one to have, thanks to the PhysX enhancements and controls. However, being the best version doesn't help all that much when the game is this frustrating to begin with. Mirror's Edge is worth trying out sometime down the road when the price drops a little, or if a sequel ever comes out that completely revises the combat system. As is, gamers wouldn't be missing out on much by running past as this one falls off the edge.

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